War and Peace · Character
Hippolyte Kurágin
Also known as le charmant Hippolyte, Hippolyte, Prince Hippolyte
- Minor
- First seen · Book 1 · Ch. 1
Hippolyte arrives wrapped in the polished finery of society, yet his blank, blinking gaze seems to drift a little apart from the conversation around him. There is something faintly comic and oddly disarming in the contrast between his grand clothes and his bewildered air.
- Gender
- male
- Age
- young
- First appears
- Book 1 · Ch. 1
- Books
- 1
A Kurágin by birth, Hippolyte moves through aristocratic society on the strength of his name and his family’s influence, though his awkwardness and dullness make him a curious ornament to its salons. His sister Hélène’s beauty has a muted echo in his features, but where she commands attention, he often seems lost in it. He serves as a comic, uncomfortable presence among the polished company, his grand attire never quite concealing his lack of sense. By the end, he has receded from the center of the story, remembered more as a mannered eccentric than as a force in events.
Description
Hippolyte is a stout, heavily built young man whose posture and expression suggest a curious weakness beneath his substantial frame. His hair is closely cropped, and spectacles sit before a vacant, weary face; his features resemble his sister’s, though softened into a duller, less animated likeness. He is most often dressed in conspicuous aristocratic fashion: a dark-green coat, high ruffle, pale knee breeches, silk stockings, and polished shoes, sometimes hidden beneath a fashionable cloak almost long enough to brush the floor. His fixed, wandering gaze and awkward, self-conscious bearing make him seem slightly out of step with the elegance he wears.
Story so far
BOOK 1War and Peace
Appearances
Meet Hippolyte Kurágin in Bookworm
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